Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread from a Starter

My experimentation with using a starter continued with just a simple loaf of 100% whole-wheat sandwich bread (and yes, I made this quite a while ago, so it will be a short blog). Once again, everything worked just as expected and no new revelations came. I did begin to become a little suspicious of my soaker though – after all I haven’t been using weight to measure quantities and the density of flour changes with the size of the grain (i.e. the coarse the grind, the more volume per once that is needed). So with my next bread, I plan to measure all my flour by weight instead of volume (after checking that the volume of water matched the appropriate weight… so that I could calibrate appropriately if it did not).

I will mention that, once again, I prefer this to the whole wheat breads I have made using a biga.

from: Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor.

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread

In an attempt to make something a little sweeter (again from my trusted Reinhart book), I tried making a classic – cinnamon raisin bread with a cinnamon sugar swirl in the middle. Different from other sweet breads (like pumpkin bread) in that it still uses yeast to rise instead of baking powder, and the bread is also drier than other sweet breads, less cake like. And though it is sweet, it isn’t nearly as sweet cinnamon buns (it’s cousin with far more sugar…). Making the bread itself is more involved than other breads I have made due to it containing more ingredients, specifically more ingredients in the soaker and biga, than anything I have made before. It is also the first bread I have made that included an egg (which I added to the biga). And yes, it is made from 100% whole-wheat flour.

Overall the bread turned out perfectly, tasting great both freshly sliced and toasted with butter. Truly it is a great bread to try once you have become experienced with baking other simpler breads. Overall I stuck pretty close to the recipe, though I substituted brown sugar for the regular sugar in the swirl, and I added walnuts, both of which turned out to be great options. I also, once again, used dried milk. The only issue that came about was that I was not able to get the raisins to distribute evenly throughout the loaf so they ended up predominantly on the outside of the bread.

Difficulty: difficult

From: Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor.

Multi-Grain Sandwhich Bread

So, of course, now that I made my starter, I had to try it out. And since I had some brown rice and barley already cooked (and I was running low on whole-wheat flour) I thought what better way to test the starter than with a multi-grain sandwich bread. Along with the brown rice and barley, I ended up using some rolled oats and cornmeal as well, for a five-grain bread (including the whole wheat). Freed from needing to use buttermilk or yogurt (to compensate for not using a starter which naturally has a more sour flavor), I thought I would go back to using the dry milk I had, hoping that the thinner consistency would give me a lighter airier bread. The end result was a delicious, soft textured slice of bread. By far the best I have made so far and definitely worth the effort of making the starter in the first place. And even though I used a starter, the bread was not sour dough bread. The sourness the starter imparted on the bread was subtle enough to enhance the flavor without overwhelming it. And, the texture was nearly as soft as a store bought loaf, though somewhat closer to the density of rye bread. Regardless, it didn’t crumble (well until it had been in the fridge for nearly a week) as the previous loaves have. From now on, whenever it is an option, I am definitely using my starter.

Difficulty: medium

From: Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor.

The Starter

My favorite breads seem to be made from a starter, specifically rye and sour dough. So, I knew that to make the breads I had truly set out to make (yes I wanted a good whole wheat, but I love nothing more than a good rye). To begin building my starter I had to first begin to cultivate a seed culture, basically allow the yeast that naturally occurs in wheat to develop. And, though there are multiple ways to go about this, I once again turned to my trusted book, yes Reinhart again. From the two examples he gave, I chose to use the mash method; partly because if it has worked for both brewers and bakers for centuries, I had a very good feeling it would work for me. So now I had to make a mash again. Then I mixed a small portion of my mash with flour and water. Then over the next week, I continually added flour, water and stirred as the yeast developed and multiplied. Finally (after a week of stirring adding mixing…) I took a portion of my cultivated culture and converted it into the starter.

If this process sounds tedious, it wasn’t. It only really took a few minutes each day to build. But, I have to admit it was somewhat unsettling seeing food that I planned on eating bubbling at room temperature for a week. Still, I continued on and just kept reminding myself that a starter is fermented dough so… I have to let it ferment…

In the end, when the starter was finished it went into the fridge, ready for me to use for next few days.

Difficulty: medium